A/N: Thanks for the comments, as always.

Synthetic Soldiers

Capítulo 19 – Allen e Nea

·÷±‡±±‡±÷·

Perhaps it had been Nea's reaction, far worse than he expected. It could also be the fact that their conversation went out of the white haired man's control quite fast, or maybe even how Nea had not hesitated in trying to deal him a blow that could have easily ended in his death, had it not been for the quick activation of his Innocence.

Whatever the reason, Allen started regretting his way of greeting a longtime friend deeply, pondering about his actions even as he fell, upside down, in a place that was more white than anywhere he had been, from the cleanest hospitals to the coldest snow covered places on Earth.

It was through a certain measure of effort that he managed to fall to the hard, cold floor without breaking a bone. His body still rattled with the impact, and he stood with wobbly movements. Just as he managed to get to his feet, a loud boom shook this new dimension, making his ears hurt and the floor vibrate. Nea had just fallen too, the impact of his feet hitting the ground so hard it created a small crater. Allen hurriedly stared at the portal many meters above their heads but only had a glimpse of the coffee shop's ceiling, before the door that defied reality flickered and disappeared.

Fearing for his safety, Allen quickly directed his attention to his friend-turned-opponent. The air crackled with pressure from Dark Matter so thick even a seasoned exorcist such as himself was unused to it, but the worst of all were the eyes – Nea's eyes, already made so maddeningly strange in their golden color, were narrowed into slits that shone with unspeakable fury.

Without a doubt, his joke must have been horribly distasteful.

When Nea took a single menacing step towards him, the very air in the room felt as if it also moved in synchrony with the man. Any humorous thoughts fled from Allen's mind, and he could only curse at himself for having messed things up so badly.

Then, Nea attacked.

He was a blur of grey, black and a hint of gold, and once again Allen had to rely on instincts born out of experience in order to survive. He could recognize a few of Nea's movements from the times they sparred together – mostly one sided beating sessions until Allen had actually gotten better and also older – but Nea must have changed a lot in the past years, or perhaps today he had stopped holding back.

Nea was clearly not a normal human, but Allen himself had a body enhanced in strength and speed, even if the accelerated healing had died out. That is why he managed to keep up, if just barely, and Nea seemed none too pleased by that.

Allen had always felt as if he was a step ahead of everyone ever since waking up in a future that wasn't ready for him… but when it came to Nea, he knew there was no way he could win, not without a very strong celestial intervention he didn't even believe in to start with.

Nea had always been a mystery to him, never revealing anything but the shortest hints about his self, about his power. But Allen had always known, even if subconsciously when he was a child, that the black haired man was strong. That had not changed with time, and the fact that the mere approach of his teacher made his whole body and Innocence stiffen with apprehension and the instinct to flee only spoke about the difference between them both.

They separated, jumping to opposite sides of the room, where the floor damage had been expanding due to its exposure to their inhuman strength. It was then that Allen, with his body aching, realized he hadn't been the only one to take damage: Nea's skin, where it was visible, had clearly been burnt. The injuries were black charred paths in the grey skin, and existed everywhere his Innocence had touched.

An angry opponent can have an increase in raw power, but not in precision…

Shake the control of your enemy, he had learnt, if you truly have no other alternative. Well, he had done that alright, if the way Nea's power leaked from him in burning waves was any sort of indication. On one side, he had never meant to do more than surprise the man, and angering him hadn't been a part of the plan; on the other, he thought as he evaded a strong but predictable attack, perhaps it had been for the best. A cold headed Nea was far more dangerous; his mentor had never had any patience to drag a fight for long. It wasn't frequent that Allen had had the opportunity to see Nea fight, but the usual pattern was a very swift attack that finished the combat almost as soon as it had started, leaving no room for pondering or word exchanging. Had Allen been against that Nea, he was sure his reawakening in the world would be a much shorter one.

Now, however, Nea felt like a combination of eagerness for violence and, at the same time, some sort of hesitation; should he wish Allen dead, it wouldn't take long, and could have happened back in the city. Here, however, the Noah seemed ready to attack but, at the same time, he wouldn't use his abilities as well as he could.

Noah…

Dark grey skin, black stigmata carved in the forehead and gold eyes in Mana. Dark grey skin, black stigmata and gold eyes in Nea. In both situations, here and decades ago, they had felt so very wrong. Allen had learned about the Noah, even if there was a limit on how much you could research in the topic before your sources ran dry. Enemies of humanity, powers beyond even that of exorcists, the close family of the Earl's – all in all painted as devils, and Nea was one –

He'd expected it back then, in his last years of life. Nea hadn't been very careful with the clues. Like Mana, he dropped one here and there absentmindedly, not realizing or caring that his pupil was slowly putting the pieces together.

Despite his obvious wounds, Nea advanced as ferociously as before. Their clash was one where he would have lost a limb if not for the intervention of his always useful anti Akuma weapon, and Allen watched in dread as Nea's own arm, raised to strike, remained in contact with his own. Nea was clearly burning where they pushed against each other, dark and noxious smoke released from his damaged flesh and permeating the arm as Allen's weapon slowly sank into his flesh.

"Stop," said Allen finally, "Your arm…"

"I don't know where you found this, or why it has accepted you," said Nea, voice more threatening than it had any right to be, "but I'm going to rip it away from you and let it sink the ocean."

He had expected his Innocence to be enough proof of his identity. Why was it so hard for Nea to believe in him? Why was it so difficult, when most of the world had already accepted?

Even though Nea was the one who had been hurt in their contact, Allen was the one to jump away at the threat. Nea's deformed arm, that had been melted to the bone, started reforming with the promptness of accelerated healing, only even faster than Allen's had been even during its prime.

Another strong bolt of raw dark matter followed Allen, and he dodged it with a fast beating heart. It hit the wall behind him, but the exorcist didn't have the time to inspect the damage. Nea was clearly wishing for his death. His teacher – the Noah – attacked him once more, and this time it almost got him, passing only about a centimeter away from his left eye and cutting some strands of white hair.

It was unexpected but, fortunately, he didn't lose his bearings because he was used to it, even if he hadn't thought it would happen right now: his eye, having almost been touched by dark matter, activated, turning the left side of his vision a field of inverted colors. Nea shone with maliciousness at the center of it all but, for the first time, the enemy detected by his eye didn't have a soul attached to him.

The reaction lasted only for a second before his curse deactivated once again. Though adrenaline pushed Allen to continue fighting, Nea's expression made him stop because finally, finally the man seemed reluctant and out of his crazed rage. Allen watched as the fury seemed to drain away from his body and it relaxed, not absolutely calm but in a more contemplative position.

Nea seemed pensive, staring at him as if he was a particularly tricky puzzle – one whose solution meant life or death.

Allen already readied himself for Nea's defusing. He would apologize profusely to Nea for pissing him off this badly and then he would sort of punch him in the face for almost murdering him.

Instead of the dialogue he had been hoping for, however, Nea inserted his hand inside his now damaged coat. He retrieved what looked, to Allen's confused gaze, like a little white box. As Nea started shuffling it, however, Allen realized they were actually cards.

Not good.

"Listen to me!" Allen finally exclaimed, but the other continued handling the dangerous weapons, unwavering. "Nea-"

"What can you do," mused Nea, now walking in calm nonchalance, "if your Innocence is rendered useless?"

Allen tensed at the implication and its possibilities, and then Nea launched his attack. Unable to defend against it, Allen could only watch as the spell cards attached to his arm, deactivating his Innocence and making his arm limp and unserviceable.

He stared at the strips of paper, and...

"A binding spell specialized in Innocence?" he asked in confusion, not out of fear but simply because this was unreasonable. Binding spells of this sort were cards created and used by the Black Order for more than a hundred years as a means to control their accommodators who had parasitic Innocence and thus, couldn't be separated from their weapons. Being caught by this trap usually meant the battle was over for any exorcist.

Any exorcist but him, that is. Allen had learned, in his past life, the way to undo this spell and became known as the only exorcist who could escape from it. To this day he used the technique quite frequently, and now he did so once more, performing the hand signals and taking the reverse binding spell card he always made sure to draw and keep with him. Carrying ways to undo binding spells was almost as important as carrying food, and considering Nea had been the one to teach him how to undo the restraints, he could only wonder why the man thought this would stop him.

Strangely enough, Nea did not look so surprised at Allen's ease in removing his attack. It was almost as if…

Could it be?

"I only taught Allen this procedure, and made him swear he wouldn't teach it to anyone, even other exorcists…" Nea mused out loud, eyes unreadable.

Allen's chest filled with hope. "I never passed the technique to anyone, just as you asked."

"Or perhaps the idiotic brat did just that, and that's why I have an impostor who can pretend to be him so well."

The white haired exorcist sagged with emotional exhaustion. Would this not work? Had he, by contacting his teacher, basically committed suicide? "I am Allen," he said, for the lack of more impacting words.

"Allen is dead," proclaimed Nea with certainty, but the bitterness was palpable and even surprising. Allen had expected his death to be a mere inconvenience to his teacher and his rebirth, a somewhat pleasant revelation. To see Nea now, however, was to understand that the whole ordeal meant more to him than he wanted to let out.

Had his mentor truly cared?

"I will only be dead if you decide to kill me," said Allen, feeling unpleasant feelings rise on him. They weren't fear and adrenaline – not quite. They were, instead, waves of bitterness and resentment. He didn't know what to make of them, so he continued, "Are you going to kill me again? I have my Innocence, I have my memories, I can prove my identity! First Mana, and then you! Are you really going to kill me again?"

The grey skinned Noah visibly froze. From all the things Allen had said and done, nothing seemed to have affected him as badly as now, and he didn't seem angry; no, he seemed thunderstruck, startled in an unpleasant way.

·÷±‡±±‡±÷·

"Are you really going to kill me again?"

Even if he had been slapped in the face by that boy, Nea wouldn't be more dumbfounded.

Allen had been an uncertainty in his life for far too long. Seen at first as a way to get his hated brother, Allen became important by himself – though Nea had never realized that, not until the boy died, trespassed by Mana's sword.

Mana, damned Mana, whose existence was meant to torment and destroy Nea's own. Then he went and killed Allen, doubling his hate for the Millennium Earl – something he'd never thought possible. His life ever since his student's death had been a constant of forgetting all about Allen and then finding himself immersed in thoughts of the boy… wanting to understand more about him. Wanting to see him again, replaying that final moment of theirs in that coffee shop like an idiot lunatic. And being aware, with painful conviction, that Allen had been human and humans, once finished, wouldn't wake anymore.

And then Allen – this boy appeared, playing his apprentice's part, and Nea had wanted to rip him apart. It wasn't out of a need to affect Mana, or even to help or harm the world; it was just his need to destroy anything and anyone that messed with the memory of Allen too much, who pried and interfered into things that should be left in the past.

The young exorcist had always been Nea's open wound – he now could admit it, no matter how shameful of a weakness it was. It tormented him that he had killed the boy. He didn't do so with his own hands, no, but he did so indirectly with his actions. Training the child ever since he was young to become a remarkable exorcist, aiding and giving him incentive in his absurd quest to win the war and, inevitably, passing the boy his techniques and strategies, his way of acting and thinking and part of his combat skills.

It was only natural that the youngster got the attention of Mana as he had. It was only natural that his brother, insane and idiotic and powerful as he was, would think of Allen as an incarnation of Nea and destroy him.

Nea had been readying Allen like a pig for a slaughter; there was no other way to describe it. He had his own voice, his so-called 'conscience', repeating to him over and over again in the last decades that it was his fault, that he had killed Allen.

And now he had a boy with Allen's Innocence and Allen's eyes and Allen's mannerisms blaming Nea for Allen's death.

He wanted to kill the boy for being an impostor.

But he also was reluctant to, because…

If he killed this young man without being absolutely sure he wasn't Allen, he would have the rest of eternity to ponder whether he had truly killed his apprentice again or not.

What madness have I fallen in?

Walking towards the distressed boy who had taken an obvious beating, he did only one last thing he could think of: he raised his hand, filled with Dark Matter potent in force and malice, and raised it towards the boy's scarred eye, so as to confirm what he thought he had seen.

He almost wanted the eye to remain unmoved. He wanted it to remain as it was, grey and unchanged as a proof that the scar was a fake, and that this whole ordeal had been an elaborate scheme to fool him. He wanted, wanted so badly to take this judging stranger away from the Earth, to give him a tomb in the Noah's Ark.

The eye reacted as it always used to, despite his wishes, widening involuntarily. He watched it as it was filled with Dark Matter of its own, eager to answer Nea's call, morphing an once normal grey orb into a black and red sphere, one with a penetrating gaze, exactly as the one he remembered about.

He knew about it, had studied the boy as a child; the eye was impossible to replicate, impossible to imitate. The eye that could see trapped souls… something only the Earl of the Millennium could do. He, and those he allowed to do such a thing.

"Mana's gift…" whispered Nea, overwhelmed and feeling as his whole world was thrown upside down for the first time in many years. But before he could do anything else, he felt a strong pull on his energy and strength, one that drained his vitality from his very core and bound it tightly, in a way that he had never felt before.

Allen, with still mismatched eyes, held his hands in the symbol for bind.

Nea fell to his knees as his body was drained of the strength giving Dark Matter, the fuel of all Noah related abilities; his skin returned to its humane, tan color, and he knew the stigmata and golden eyes were also gone. His angry energy was gone, and his torso and arms were glued together by many cards.

"The fourth binding category: Dark Matter specialization. It is fortunate I have never lost the habit of carrying it around," said Allen, now looking down at him from his standing position. Both grey and red eyes were filled with apprehension.

"My own creation," said Nea, recognizing the drawn symbols instantly. The weapon he had created against his brother, against the rest of his family; back then it was only a prototype, but it was more than enough to bind down Akuma and render them useless.

"Yes… you were really going to kill me, right?" asked Allen, and Nea raised his head in surprise. No, he was not. He wasn't – " I guess this finishes negotiations, if they ever had started," continued the boy, raising a hand to his still active cursed eye. "I apologize for the way I approached you. I guess I am truly dead in your eyes."

Ah. His test had been to activate Allen's left eye by putting it close to enough Dark Matter so that it would mistake it for an Akuma's presence; naturally, having Nea raise a hand filled with the malicious energy so close to his head must have looked more like a murder attempt.

"I wasn't going to kill you," said Nea sincerely. Well, now he wasn't. A minute ago, however…

Allen's eyes narrowed. "I cannot believe you," he stated, "I… won't do anything to you, though."

Nea blinked, perplexed.

"I… won't hurt you. Just open one of your portals, and I will leave you alone," said the boy, sounding defeated. "Or can I use one of those white doors to depart?"

Wait. So the boy thought…

The boy thought…

…How laughable.

Some aspects of a person's character won't change, no matter the situation, and if Nea was anything besides vengeful, it was prideful. He was overwhelmed by Allen's continued existence in this world, by the many possibilities –

But he had a young boy, a child by his standards, insinuating he had defeated his master, a Noah hundreds of years old.

The proper greetings could wait.

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself, Allen?"

He saw the boy's eyes widen at finally being called by his name, but it could also be apprehension caused by Nea's threatening tone.

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Allen, his voice not as sure as before.

"Did you really think, even for a moment," he continued, raising from his uncharacteristic and admittedly humiliating kneeling position in the floor, "that I would create and much less teach a technique I can't fight against?"

"You-" Allen started, Innocence ready to fight, but he had no chance. If there was a reason this version of the bind was a mere prototype, it was because it could be defeated by raw strength, one mere Akuma couldn't imitate.

The strength of a Noah.

Gathering all he had in order to release himself from Allen's spell, he felt the containing cards fight against his will, trying to keep any energy he generated bound inside their invisible barriers. Nea was far too much, however, and he could feel the exact moment they couldn't contain him anymore: the pressure became far too great, the considerable barrier created by years of spell craft giving way as the strips of paper burned and fell apart uselessly.

The outcome was devastating.

Finally released from a containment it wasn't used to, and already fueled by Nea's attempt at drawing as much of it as possible, the Dark Matter exploded from his body in a enormous, deafening wave without a target. It reverberated through the chamber, causing mayhem and throwing Allen in the air. The boy fell in a heap meters away, gasping for breath and staring at Nea with the wide, fearful eyes of the defeated.

Nea smirked in satisfaction. That would teach the arrogant little brat. "Good. Now, I want to-"

His request for answers was interrupted by a loud groan. It made him tense, and Allen winced. It wasn't a normal noise; instead, it sounded extremely loud and grave, like the moan of an enormous, dying creature. Nea looked around, at first in confusion, seeing nothing but his battered student and a ruined room.

As if to answer his internal doubts, another growl started. The floor – everything around them – shifted as strongly as a ship hit by a strong wave would, and Nea had to work hard to keep his balance. He once more looked at the state of the Ark.

No… no, it couldn't be –

"What is happening?" asked Allen, looking pathetically confused by the whole situation. He still seemed quite wary of Nea, but afraid of the room also, so there was no place for him to run to.

"The Ark…" said Nea, inspecting the damage. Right then, a chunk of the wall behind Allen fell. It was three times the boy's size. "Move!" he shouted, almost going to push Allen out of the way, but the boy managed to dodge the enormous piece of white substance. It fell to the floor and impaled it like a giant dagger would.

Allen stared in alarm at the hole left by it.

There was no room beyond that wall – instead, revealed by the newly created opening, was a darkness so profound it was almost unbearable to look at. If the inside of the room was white, the outside was nothing but black. Not the black of walls painted in such a color, or the black of shadows. This black was that of pure absence of anything, of space devoid of any object, any substance. He felt a strong need to get away from the damage, as if the nothingness of the outside could suck them away without any warning.

Nea turned back to Allen and, if the way the young man took an involuntary step back was any indication, then the alarm in the Noah's face must be indeed quite dangerous.

The pressure in the air changed, the area oppressive with a threat greater than any exorcist or Noah, and something that felt deep and far away rumbled with menace.

"Damn it," swore Nea, understanding now that he had managed to destabilize the Ark.

This had never, ever happened before, no matter how much the Noah family played with space, time and the many dimensions they had no complete knowledge about.

"Perhaps…" whispered Allen, "you could open a new portal such as the last one?" The and take me with you went unspoken but quite clear.

"No, I cannot," snarled Nea, even though the ignorance wasn't the boy's fault. Things weren't so easy. The instant transportation provided by the Ark depended on its whole construct; he didn't want to think about what could happen to them should they walk through a device that would be as disrupted as the Ark itself. "I must correct this. Come," said he, running towards one of the white doors. It was already crumbling under the pressure of breaking walls, but he managed to pass through with a forceful kick that tore it apart. To his relief, Allen had forgotten their previous death match and followed his instructions without preamble; the fact that the space they were in before was about to collapse had also to be quite the incentive.

"Where are we?" exclaimed Allen, clearly not seeing their salvation in Nea's most important room.

Nea didn't waste any time explaining, however; not when even the chamber, that was his control room, was ready to fall into ruin. Running towards the musical instrument and settling himself there, he placed his fingers over the piano keys, and started playing without hesitation, rendering himself to the ease of practice, emptying his mind of any urge, any restlessness or fear; a mistake could ruin everything. After all, this was far from just a piano.

It was a key. A key that opened the Ark, that closed it, that kept the portals and that ruled over space and matter inside that little pocket of his that remained in a different dimension.

The song was always the same; instead of different codes for different purposes, the tune and message persisted, uncaring of being used to build or destroy; it was, instead, the intent of the player that decided what would be the fate of the rooms around them. Once upon a time, it ruled over the entire Ark. Now, it held only a small session of the whole construct, the rest under the control of the Earl and his bastardized, dark version of the instrument.

Everything around him lost its importance, even Allen himself, as he felt rather than watched, with closed eyes, the slow but sure reconstruction of his rooms; he had managed to avoid their end by a very small margin, and there was nothing to do but fulfill his role until everything was stabilized once again.

·÷±‡±±‡±÷·

Initially, Allen had been astounded at Nea's actions. He had expected a escape route, a safe house, anything that could save them from the collapse of this place that clearly couldn't be on Earth. What he had been presented with, however, was a room as white as the one before, with nothing but a piano in the center; it was devoid of any useful means that he could see. He looked at the door he had just ran through and watched, distressed, as it was torn apart by the weight of the wall; the previous room was clearly impossible to go back to, and he wouldn't risk attack the building and damaging it even more.

Then Nea ran to the piano and started playing, ignoring Allen completely. Allen had wanted to scream, to hit his teacher, even. They were going to die here, and the man was going to play a song. Was he going completely insane? Without any hope, he still ran close to the chamber's walls, hoping to find a secret device, a passage, anything so he could grab the Noah and drag them out of here and to whatever lay outside.

Then, the song started.

Allen stopped in his tracks after the first notes were revealed, paralyzed. He could do nothing but pay attention to what he heard. The rumble and the noise caused by the destruction seemed to disappear from the forefront of his mind, much less important than the notes he heard, and he slowly turned back to watch his teacher as he played the ethereal music.

Around them, the destruction and movement stopped and, under Allen's astonished gaze, the area started slowly repairing itself; only part of his attention was turned towards it, however. Most of his mind was on his teacher, on the song, because he could, as always, remember it by heart.

There were two 'useless' things Nea taught Allen when the then redhead was a child.

…and one or two embers in the fading ashes of the fire…

One was a lullaby, that he refused to sing to Allen as he slept because I am not your parent, but would sing distractedly here and there, in a way so unfitting to his personality.

…Dreaming many thousands of dreams,

spreading across the land…

Allen never asked him the origin of the song, afraid that touching on the subject would make the man close up. There were so many things they didn't talk about.

…Even though countless of years

turn so many prayers back to earth…

He could recognize the words, even if Nea wasn't singing, even if the instrument was the only thing making sounds.

…somehow, love this child, please…

The other 'useless' thing Nea taught him... had been how to play the piano.

A skill of absolutely no use for someone who must spend every minute of free time he has to learn how to survive, Nea had grumbled even as, contradicting his own statement, he placed Allen's smaller hands over the old keys and taught him in that irritable and impatient way of his, but I suppose a child must have a hobby, even if just so you will stop trying to play detective on my personal matters.

Nea hadn't really taught him how to play the piano; he taught, instead, a sequence to press the keys in order to perform a single melody. Only one.

And even then, Allen had never stopped practicing, because Nea had never taught him anything that wasn't deemed practical or necessary. It was the closest Allen felt to him in that moment, through that single song; and so he had practiced and memorized the movements, playing even in the air when a piano wasn't necessary. His fingers moved over ghost keys when waiting for a Black Order commander, when given a moment of rest in the field or even when he just needed to sit and calm down.

He had been a child of the streets, yet it had been so easy for him to learn, even if Nea only taught him in a handful of moments.

It didn't take long for Allen to understand why it was so easy to remember, so easy to perform.

It had been… Mana's secret code.

And ever since the boy realized, he had stopped seeing his mentor with the same eyes.

He walked towards the piano, and towards this man who had known Mana somehow.

Leaning over Nea, Allen positioned his hands over the keys, and the man startled but, before he could even react, Allen pushed the grey hands away and took over. Instantly, the map of the place they were in filled his vision, and he could watch the rooms shifting and repairing themselves, little by little, fed by the song that was the key to control it and keep it stable. Fed also by the mere presence and the will of the one who played.

He didn't really know for how long he played; but a minute after the map in his mind stopped changing, after utter silence broken only by the music could be heard, Nea started getting up. Startled at being pushed away from the piano by his rising back, Allen blinked, as if out of a trance.

"That's enough," said Nea, and Allen finally took a look at the room with his own open eyes; it was pristine, clear of any damage. Even the ruined door they had used was now in a perfect state, as if denying the previous ordeal they had just gone through.

His legs felt weak.

Allen sat in the floor, giving way to his emotional and physical exhaustion: he couldn't easily point out which troubled him more. The Innocence had deactivated long ago, and his position was full of openings; he carried the air of one who had given up on any sort of conflict.

He was also the one who broke the silence.

"Mana… you know, Mana taught me… when I was a child…" he took a deep breath, decided to explain things properly; he wouldn't ruin this moment with words tainted by hesitation. "Mana taught me a code, shortly after we got to meet each other. He would draw it in a paper and then then burn it, or over a dusty surface he would later wipe clean; but he taught it to me many times. At first I thought it was a cool secret code, a new language," said Allen, remembering those many moments. The moments near his father, whom he still refused to completely link with the Earl. "But we never used it to speak, really. It was just a sequence of symbols and pauses. I knew how to draw it. I knew it by heart, but that was all; still, it was one of the few things that were steady about father, and I wanted to learn it and keep it close. So I did.

"He said once, in that distracted voice of his, when he would murmur and not look at my face… he said it was a key. Said that someday I would go home, so I better remember it.

"He never spoke a word about that ever again, though. I asked him why the code was a key and he wouldn't remember. Or sometimes he would get all nervous… I… just wanted him to remain calm and happy, so I was careful with everything I said. Like with you," Allen explained, staring at Nea's unreadable eyes. Eyes that were a gold so dark they could be called a light brown; the stigmata marks were gone, and his unblemished skin was growing lighter. A good signal.

"Then you taught me your own code. No, a song. It was a song, didn't you say that? Useless, you said, and acted like it was such a trouble to teach me, but I hadn't really asked. All of a sudden, you decided I had to know. Like Mana."

Grey eyes, pleading for honesty, were unwavering. "What is Mana to you, Nea?"

Nea remained silent for a while, pondering on whether he should open to the boy or simply revert to misdirecting answers that would eventually close the topic.

But that thought only lasted for a short while. Allen was alive.

Alive.

There was no way he would replay the same story of decades ago.

"He is… my other half," said he sincerely, and Allen seemed surprised at the answer. Not wanting to lose his determination to speak, Nea continued, "a half of the Millennium Earl."

Allen's body stiffened, his frame clearly rigid with apprehension, even if he still didn't get up from his sitting position. He looked at Nea with the same eyes one should have at such a revelation, before he deflated – he was the picture of tiredness.

It made Nea worry.

"You are… the Millennium Earl?" Allen choked with difficulty. He looked so broken, so far away from the defiant boy Nea knew he was. "Because… if you are…"

Nea knew what that meant; knew that his revelation could change the boy's entire perspective. He didn't ready himself for attack or even defense, however.

Today had been too much for both of them.

"If you are," continued Allen, and Nea readied himself for the declaration of war – for the restart of the battle, even. "Then this war is lost. I… am ready to fight… Mana. Who isn't my father anymore. Not as he is; but not you. That is far too much. If I must defeat you…" Allen let out an unamused laugh, "then my rebirth was meaningless. I can't, and even if I could, I don't want to fight you. No, no. My fathers… both my fathers…"

Fathers? Alarmed, Nea decided to cut that trail of thought before it went too far.

"I am not truly the Millennium Earl. I may be a half of the first disciple, of the patriarch, but the Millennium Earl isn't about genetics or the Noah identity – he is about ideals, about objectives and the final mission of enslaving or destroying humanity. We are like black and white, like oil and water; so different we actually separated into two and are in a constant circle of trying to destroy each other." That had happened long ago, much before Katerina even dreamed of being born; before her parents and grandparents existed, even. The Millennium Earl grew to have doubts, to question his destiny. He began to distance himself from the design. The doubts grew and grew until both sides couldn't live with each other anymore; rather than being halved in two identical parts, Nea believed he himself had been expelled from the rest. Given new names and identities by a human female who fancied herself their mother, they lived together in harmony for a few short years but, naturally, it wasn't meant to last.

The part named Mana wanted the part named Nea dead; that was invisible in their first decade together, but started to show in Mana's behavior in the second and resulted in that final conflict.

Allen still looked desperate, but to a lesser degree. He shook his head and then his body tilted; he held himself with a hand, avoiding falling to the floor. "I see. That is relieving." He then raised his eyes. "Allow me to help you, then."

"Your mistake has always been to wish to destroy the Order without first erasing the Millennium Earl. Are you sure-"

"I know what I must do, now," said Allen, eyes hardened, "and I paid a great price for not listening to you. Let me help."

Nea was still very apprehensive. The boy had already been killed once, in a fight with that man. "You have always seen him as your father. I don't want you to die yet again, held back by your useless memories-"

"I won't," he said with determination, finally getting up from his position in the cold ground. Nea also left his seat. "My father died when he left me, out of his own volition. I saw it with my own eyes, before the day he disappeared. He was being taken over, little by little. I only came to recognize it… when it was too late."

"Still…"

"He died. He told me so! He warned me. My father is my father, and he will always be. I'm not renouncing the Mana that took care of me for those years. I'm just accepting he is gone, devoured by the one who killed me. The one who wants to kill you."

This boy… this boy. He hadn't changed at all. He was shorter, and he had strange looks, but he was the same of always – impossible to hold back, impossible to contain, not for as long as he was alive.

And even after death, it seemed, he persisted.

Nea's lips curled in wry amusement, despite the situation. "Devoured, huh… an interesting term you use, indeed. But let me clarify one thing," he said. His eyes shone gold yet again and were even more feral than before. "You aren't going back on your promise. You aren't going to die because of your foolishness yet again. If you so much as get a single scratch because of that infuriating reluctance of yours, I will destroy you myself. This is not an empty threat; you became my weakness, the way I wanted you to become Mana's. So you better be worth the risk, got it?"

There, he had said it; in short words, he had revealed his initial intentions with the boy, the reason why he had saved him as a child. He had even threatened his life for the thousandth time that day. In a normal relationship, such an attitude would sever any remaining bonds between two individuals.

Allen looked suitably afraid for about two seconds, before his face eased into that contented smile of his. "Ah, there's the teacher I know and love."

...Idiot.

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A/N: Thanks to rananieida from deviantart, for the song translation.